Catholic  Womanhood 
and  the  SociaUstic  State 


IKelcn  IHaines 


New  York 
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120  West  60th  Street 


Copyright,  191 5»  BY  "The  Missionary  Society  of 
St.  Paul  the  Apostle  in  the  State 
OF  New  York 


Catholic  Womanhood  and 
the  Socialistic  State' 


|N  every  age  the  least  champion  of  truth  must 
have  a  working  knowledge  of  the  weapons 
suited  to  that  age.  And  to-day,  in  our  own 
land,  where  a  materialistic  mist  is  fast  ob- 
literating our  national,  God-fearing  convic- 
tions, this  in  an  especial  manner  is  the  privilege  of  the 
Catholic  woman.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  sacrifice 
and  devotion  of  twenty  centuries  have  proclaimed  truth, 
"  eternal,  God-made,"  and  have  protected  it  for  her  in  her 
faith.  And  if  to-day  she  is  to  combat  Socialism's  concep- 
tion of  truth,  material,  man-made — if  she  is  to  see 
active  service  in  Catholicism's  valiant  defence  against 
which  the  Socialistic  attack  must  in  the  end  recoil — she 

^Catholic  Definitions  of  Socialism. 

"  We  call  Socialism  a  system  of  political  economy,  not  as  if  it 
did  not  also  lead  to  many  social  and  political  changes,  but  because 
the  gist  of  Socialism  consists  in  the  nationalization  of  property  and 
in  the  public  administration  of  all  goods  "  (Cathrein). 

"  The  principle  of  Socialism  is  that  the  means  of  production  are 
morally  the  property  not  of  individuals  but  of  the  State  ;  that  in  the 
hands  of  individuals,  however  widely  diffused,  such  property  ex- 
ploits the  labor  of  others,  and  that  such  exploitation  is  wrong " 
(Belloc). 

Socialist  Definitions  of  Socialism. 
"  Socialism   advocates  the  transfer  of  ownership   in  the  social 
tools  of  production — the  land,  factories,  machinery,  railroads,  mines, 
etc. — from  the  individual  capitalist,  to  be  operated  for  the  benefit  of 
all"  (Hillquit). 

*'  Socialism  may  be  completely  understood  only  when  viewed  in 
its  broader  sense,  as  first,  an  economic  belief ;  second,  a  plan  or 
prophecy  for  a  future  commonwealth,  and  third,  a  working  method 

for    the    allotment    of    this    commonwealth  (in    the  United 

States).  It  is  itself  not  a  science,  but  is  a  basis  for  an  ultimate 
programme,  a  series  of  immediate  demands,  and  a  summons  of  the 
working  class  to  either  constructive  or  revolutionary  action " 
(  Hughan). 


4  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


must  be  able  to  parry  question  with  question,  answer  with 
answer,  thrust  with  thrust. 

At  the  outset,  it  would  appear  that  the  followers  of 
two  such  different  standards  need  not  clash.  The  world 
being  wide,  we  might  go  our  several  ways.  However, 
not  one,  but  many  causes,  have  contributed  to  press  us 
close.  Since  Marx  and  Engel  first  issued  their  manifesto, 
far  greater  changes  have  been  wrought  in  the  economic 
world  than  the  worker  then  faced.  To-day,  woman  can- 
not be  left  out  of  the  reckoning.  Modern  industrialism 
sees  us  all — the  believer  in  the  eternal  verities,  and  the 
believer  that  the  material  world  is  the  only  truth — wound 
in  its  coils.  And  it  is  in  the  struggle  to  free  ourselves  of 
a  common  bondage  that  our  crossing  of  swords  has  come. 
To-day,  then,  the  American  woman — whether  she  works 
or  plays — thus  finds  herself  confronted  by  two  concep- 
tions of  modern  society,  the  direct  result  of  these  two 
conceptions  of  truth. 

Are  we  to  apply  the  principles  of  Eternal  Truth  to 
the  moral  and  economic  abuses  of  our  state — to  realize  a 
great  social  reform  through  the  cooperation  of  conscience- 
aroused  individuals  ?  Or,  is  the  new  Socialist  State  to  be 
formed  in  which  the  workers  shall  control  government 
and  the  means  of  production  after  modern  capitalistic 
society  has  been  swept  away  by  a  great  social  revolution,^ 
or  by  some  principle  of  buying-out  the  capitalist?^ 
Either  of  these  two  proposals  has  a  direct  bearing  upon 

^Marx's  Kladderadatsch — still  the  hope  of  one  wing  of  American 
Socialists. 

"  More  likely,  the  process  of  transformation  will  be  complicated 
and  diversified,  and  will  be  marked  by  a  series  of  economic  and 
social  reforms,  and  legislative  measures  tending  to  divest  the  ruling 
classes  of  their  monopolies,  privileges,  and  advantages,  step  by 
step,  until  they  are  practically  shorn  of  their  power  to  exploit  their 
fellows ;  i.  e.,  until  all  the  important  means  of  production  have 
passed  into  collective  ownership,  and  all  the  principal  industries  are 
reorganized  on  the  basis  of  Socialist  cooperation "  (Hillquit,  So- 
cialism in  Theory  and  Practice). 

^"It  is  impossible  by  any  jugglery,  to  'buy-out'  the  universality  of 
the  means  of  production  without  confiscation"  (Belloc,  The  Ser- 
vile State). 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  5 


the  needs  of  all  American  women.  Social  reform*  being 
a  development  along  the  lines  of  our  country's  institu- 
tions, is  simpler  for  us  to  grasp  than  Socialism.  Yet 
frequently,  we  find  their  terms  used  interchangeably,  so 
it  seems  doubtful  whether  any  large  number  of  American 
women  can  differentiate  them. 

In  any  event,  reforms  so  far-reaching  as  Socialism 
proposes — reforms  so  far  removed  from  our  national 
ideas  of  government,  demand  a  definite  attitude  from 
those  most  affected,  which  would  not  after  all  be  our 
working  class,  but  our  women.  Yet  a  definite  attitude 
toward  any  great  public  question  is  not  characteristic  of 
American  women.  And  perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  expect, 
since  we  have  so  many  inherited  racial,  political,  and 
religious  antipathies  or  prepossessions. 

Yet  this  cannot  be  the  case  with  the  Catholic  women 
of  our  country.  Whatever  our  other  prejudices  may  be, 
we  have  one  common  bond.  We  possess  Eternal  Truth. 
We  believe  in  its  dogmatic  teaching.  We  have,  in  conse- 
quence, a  definite  attitude  toward  life  and  its  concerns. 
For  it  is  truth's  beautiful  characteristic  that  it  does  not 
have  to  change  to  meet  economic  changes.  Each  Cath- 
olic woman  knows  each  life  is  great  for  its  eternal  aim 
and  end,  and  that  it  is  because  of  this  eternal  aim  and  end 
she  was  created  to  serve  God.  She  knows  that  every  hu- 
man being  has  certain  inalienable  and  inherent  rights :  ^ 
the  right  to  live,  the  right  to  marry,  the  right  to  liberty, 
the  right  to  serve  God.  She  knows,  too,  it  is  out  of  these 
natural  moral  rights  that  our  duties  spring,  and  flow  to 
and  from  society :  our  duties  as  employer  and  employed — 
our  attitude  toward  our  difficulties  and  adjustments  which 
must  follow  where  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  is  re- 
jected by  a  large  number  of  either  class.  For  while 
Socialism  would  not  have  gone  so  far  among  American 

*J.  A.  Ryan,  D.D.,  A  Programme  of  Social  Reform  by  Legislation 
and  Social  Reform  on  Catholic  Lines.  New  York :  The  Paulist 
Press. 

-/viexander  P.  Mooney,  M.D.,  Catholic  Principles  of  Social  Re- 
form.   London :    Catholic  Truth  Society. 


6 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


women,  had  not  our  material  necessities  gone  farther,  yet 
it  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  larger  acceptance  of  the 
doctrines  of  this  purely  material  theory,  and  our  own  ma- 
terialistic growth,  are  synchronous  with  the  loss  of  the 
American  woman's  faith  in  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord. 

There  are  many  signs  that  she  is  exchanging  old 
lamps  for  new,"  and  is  being  cheated  by  the  magician. 
Gone  is  our  old  stern  attitude  toward  church  attendance, 
toward  the  pursuit  of  amusement,  toward  the  Bible,  to- 
ward divorce.  For  given  a  vagueness  of  religious  be- 
lief and  a  consequent  inability  to  define  it,  we  are  bound 
to  have  a  vague  moral  bearing  toward  duties  and  re- 
sponsibilities. And  the  meaning  of  life  becomes  blurred. 
We  exaggerate  the  importance  of  all  its  material  side. 
Many  sincere  women,  formerly  calling  themselves  Chris- 
tians, are  looking  to  Marx's  material  conception  of  history 
to  replace  their  lost  faith.  And  are  hoping  by  bettering 
the  material  condition  of  their  neighbor  to  nourish  their 
souls. 

The  Christian  Socialists,"  says  Miss  Hughan  in  her 
American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day,  are  naturally 
drawn  to  a  larger  extent  from  the  congregations  of  the 
more  liberal  Protestant  Churches,  representing  the  edu- 
cated native  middle  class,  rather  than  from  the  working 
classes  to  whom  religion  and  radicalism  comes,  as  a  rule, 
in  forms  opposed  to  one  another." 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  Catholic  women  that 
our  Lord  did  not  repeal  the  Ten  Commandments.  He 
added  to  them — the  love  of  our  neighbor  as  ourselves. 
Yet  that  humanitarianism  which  Christianity  first  taught 
the  world,  and  for  which  Socialism  stands,  (providing  the 
neighbor  be  a  worker)  has  been  made  the  whole  of 
Christ's  message.  The  cry  of  justice  " — Socialism's 
chief  catchword  in  this  country — has  served  to  coalesce 
the  border  Socialist  and  the  border  Christian  into  a  sort 
of  interlocking  directorate.  Christian  ministers  ordained 
to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  now  preach  the  gos- 
pel of  material  needs,  while  the  Socialist  "  intellectual," 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


7 


admiring  our  Lord  as  a  "  Reformer,"  couples  His  Name 
with  that  of  Karl  Marx,  and  claims  for  Marx  theories^  a 
spiritual  significance/  For  the  Catholic  woman,  how- 
ever, there  can  be  neither  catchword  nor  vagueness.  The 
need  for  clarity  is  too  great.  We  know  that  every  day 
the  natural  rights  of  women  workers  are  disregarded. 
We  know  that  there  are  some  six  million  women  and 
children  working  in  our  land  of  plenty— many  of  them 
over  hours — for  the  merest  pittance,  and  miserably 
housed.    And  the  times  are  ripe  for  the  Socialist  appeal. 

Undeniably,  the  word  justice  calls  all  American  women. 
We  have  an  inherited  passion  for  justice,  coupled  with  a 
perfectly  normal  desire  "to  get  on,''  as  we  say;  while  it 
is  for  these  two  reasons  the  foreign-born  woman  comes 
to  cast  her  lot  with  us.  Just  now,  too,  American  women 
are  asking  for  many  measures  for  their  betterment  both 
economically  and  politically.  The  industrial  changes  of 
the  past  half  century  have  made  woman's  demands  almost 
identical  with  man's.  We  are  now  told  that  woman's 
whole  future  depends  upon  her  economic  and  political 
independence.  Socialism  aligns  itself  with  every  measure 
to  assure  them.  And  it  would  further  appear  that  woman 
having  won  her  economic  battle  single-handed,  first 
against  man's  opposition  and  then  against  his  reluctant 
permission,  should  be  even  more  ready  than  man  to  in- 
trust her  interests  to  a  beneficent  state  whose  concern 
would  be  equal  for  every  individual.  Socialism,  there- 
fore, invites  the  cooperative  and  understanding  sympathy 
of  all  women  towards  securing  justice  for  all  women — a 
result  to  be  perfectly  achieved  in  the  Socialist  State. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  the  Catholic  woman's  attitude  to- 
ward the  justice  of  Socialism?    Why  should  not  we,  of 

""The  Socialism  that  inspires  hopes  and  fears  to-day  is  of  the 
school  of  Marx.  No  one  is  seriously  apprehensive  of  any  other 
so-called  Socialistic  movement,  and  no  one  is  seriously  concerned 
to  criticize  or  refute  the  doctrines  set  forth  by  any  other  school 
of  Socialists  "  (Professor  Veblen,  Quarterly  Journal  Economics,  vol. 
xxi.,  pp.  295-300). 

^Spargo,  Spiritual  Significance  of  Modern  Socialism. 


8 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


all  American  women — since  we  number  so  many  Catholic 
workers  who  need  justice — accept  these  promises  of  the 
Socialist  State  ?  It  cannot  be  that  we  have  any  less  lively 
interest  than  the  Socialist  in  a  decent  means  of  liveli- 
hood for  the  worker,  her  living  wage  or  educational  op- 
portunities. It  cannot  be  that  we  approve  the  oppressive 
conditions  of  American  industrialism.  It  cannot  be  that 
we  are  ignorant  of  our  civic  duties,  or  that  we  are  not 
bound  in  conscience  to  eradicate  human  misery  in  so  far 
as  we  are  able.  Yet  it  is  in  this  very  oneness  of  our 
material  needs  and  aspirations,  that  the  Catholic  woman 
finds  herself  cautioned  against  this  apparently  practical 
programme.  It  is  here  she  is  called  to  the  defence  of 
those  principles  of  Eternal  Truth  which  underlie  her  in- 
herent rights :  the  right  to  live,  the  right  to  marry,  the 
right  to  liberty,  the  right  to  fulfill  her  destiny  by  serving 
God.  For  unless  the  justice  of  Socialism,  which  under- 
lies its  economic  principle  of  truth,  consorts  with  the  jus- 
tice of  Christianity,  unless  the  Socialist  State  can  protect 
these  moral  rights  which  are  from  God,  we  must  reject 
its  promises.  To  the  Catholic,  the  State  is  the  preserver 
and  defender  of  rights,  to  the  Socialist,  the  State  is  the 
giver  of  rights."^ 

This  difference  in  the  idea  of  the  powers  of  the  State 
is  so  vital  and  so  far-reaching,  that  we  at  once  under- 
stand how  it  is  a  religion  opposes  a  system  of  economics 
— a  question  which  the  Catholic  is  often  asked.  For 
while  the  justice  of  Socialism  and  the  promises  of  the 
Socialist  State  are  apparently  concerned  with  that  ma- 
terial benefit  of  the  working  woman's  means  of  livelihood, 
living  wage  and  educational  opportunities  which  cannot  be 
dissociated  from  one  of  her  inherent  rights — the  right  to 
live — yet  Socialism  denies  the  fundamental  principle  of 
the  right  to  live — the  right  to  hold  private  property — and 
the  Socialist  State  would  work  injustice  to  every  other 
class  of  woman. 

«Rev.  J.  B.  McLoughlin,  O.S.B.,  The  Catholic  Doctrine  of  Prop- 
erty.   London  :   Catholic  Truth  Society. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


9 


Socialism  by  presupposing  that  we  are  ethically  all 
alike,  or  that  we  all  want  the  same  things,  builds  its 
arguments  upon  economics.  Truth  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  world  about  us — in  the  material  world.  Since  all 
humanity  is  but  a  product  of  its  material  and  economic 
environment,  all  history  is  susceptible  of  material  and 
economic  interpretation.^  No  one  person  is  greater  than 
any  other.  The  needs  of  all  being  only  economic  may, 
therefore,  be  supplied  by  an  economic  commonwealth,  in 
which  the  collective  will  is  law.  But  the  only  gauge  for 
the  justice  or  injustice  of  that  law  would  not  be  whether 
it  was  moral  or  immoral — right  or  wrong,  as  we  say — 
but  whether  or  not  it  was  economic. 

Catholic  women  do  not  have  to  be  students  of  political 
economy — the  dullest  and  most  untutored  woman  in  the 
United  States  can  be  made  to  understand  that  a  purely 
economic  justice  can  neither  give  nor  guard  our  moral 
rights.  For  even  economic  justice  needs  to  walk  hand  in 
hand  with  the  other  cardinal  virtues — with  prudence,  with 
temperance,  with  fortitude.  It  must  also  be  tempered 
with  charity.  We  have  but  to  watch  the  grasp  of  all  this 
as  it  operates  to-day  in  the  lives  of  our  Catholic  poor,  who 
have  not  lost  their  faith.  Has  not  the  oppressed  Catholic 
woman  worker  the  same  temptations  to  self-pity  and  re- 
taliation as  her  Socialist  co-worker  ? 

Yet  what  has  her  attitude  toward  the  capitalist  in  com- 
mon with  that  "  aroused  class  consciousness  "  which  con- 
siders any  measures  of  relief  forced  from  capitalization 

are  but  a  preparation  of  the  workers  to  seize  the  whole 
powers  of  government,  in  order  that  they  may  thereby 
lay  hold  of  the  whole  system  of  industry,  and  thus  come 
into  their  rightful  inheritance."  Or  which  tells  the 
laborer  that  the  wage  workers  cannot  be  freed  from 

^"  When  you  get  the  'materialistic  conception  of  history,'  many 
things  are  made  plain.  The  halos  'round  the  heads  of  the  'great 
men'  will  disappear,  and  you  have  reached  a  point  where  the 
mouthings  of  bourgeois  historians  can  no  longer  fool  you  "  {Appeal 
to  Reason,  March  i6,  1907). 

"Socialist  Party  Platform,  1904. 


lo  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 

exploitation  without  conquering  the  political  power,  and 
substituting  collective  for  private  ownership  of  the  land 
and  means  of  production  used  for  exploitation."^^ 

And  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Spargo  tells  us  that 
Socialism  "  is  universally  recognized  as  a  mighty  force 
making  for  universal  peace,"  Miss  Hughan  says  that 
without  exception  Socialist  leaders  wish  in  all  propa- 
ganda to  emphasize  the  class  struggle.^^  In  connection 
with  the  economic  interpretation  of  history,  the  doctrine 
of  class  struggle  thus  forms  the  foundation  of  the 
American  Socialist  movement.  The  acceptance  of  it  is 
universal  among  party  members,  and  the  leaders  of  the 
organization  while  suggesting  tact  in  the  presentation  of 
the  doctrine,  yet  unite  in  advising  emphasis  upon  it  in  all 
propaganda."  Justice  set  to  this  music  sounds  unfamiliar 
to  Catholic  ears.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  human 
justice  must  always  be  doled  out  to  suffering  humanity 
by  means  of  human  agents.  And  there  is  no  ground  for 
assuming,"  as  Skelton  dryly  observes,  ''that  a  regeneration 
of  human  nature  will  follow  the  mere  substitution  of  the 
State  as  owner." 

The  easy-going  Catholic  woman  who  to-day  neglects  to 
watch  the  trend  of  our  own  country  of  the  greatest 
popular  movement  in  modern  history,  who  wonders  why 
the  Church,  the  great  guardian  of  Incarnate  Truth  who 
has  herself  governed,  and  who  has  managed  to  live  under 
every  form  of  government,  should  look  with  particular 
disfavor  upon  the  promises  of  the  Socialist  State,  has  not 
yet  understood  what  the  diffusion  of  Socialist  ideas  has 
meant  for  the  cause  of  truth  in  other  lands.  If  out  of 
terrible  material  needs,  the  proscription  of  religious  teach- 
ing, and  an  increasing  material  outlook,  defections  from 
Christianity  have  become  an  open  hostility  through  the 
spread  of  Socialist  propaganda,  why  should  we  expect 

^Ibid,,  1908. 

"Spargo,  Socialism  and  Motherhood. 

Hughan,  American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day. 
"O.  D.  Skelton,  Socialism,  a  Critical  Analysis. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  ii 

anything  more  hopeful  from  the  growth  of  materialism 
here? 

Obviously  there  is  much  coquetting  between  Socialism 
and  some  of  the  Christian  sects.  We  have  but  to  watch 
the  many  quasi-religious  movements  which  Socialists 
conduct  in  our  large  cities  like  New  York,  to  be  assured 
of  their  ultimate  cooperation  as  to  politics.  The  Chris- 
tian Socialist  commented  upon  this  fact  as  long  ago  as 
1907.  A  large  section  of  American  Socialists  compris- 
ing chiefly  the  educated  among  the  native  elements,  are 
coming  into  more  and  more  friendly  terms  with  the  more 
liberal  Churches,  while  the  Christian  Socialists,  until  re- 
cently unconnected  with  the  political  movement  are  now 
committed  to  the  Socialist  Party  without  reserve.''  Yet 
the  Catholic  is  not  the  only  one  to  mark  the  incongruity. 

The  fundamental  philosophy  underlying  all  forms  of 
Socialism,''  says  Price  Collier  in  his  England  and  the  ^ 
English,  "  is  the  worship  of  man.  The  pandering  to  this 
new  doctrine  in  the  name  of  Christian  Socialism  is  simply 
loose-minded.  The  pith  of  Christianity  and  the  pith  of 
Socialism  are  as  the  poles  apart."  It  is  plain  to  see  that 
while  in  other  lands  the  Socialist  has  also  been  crying 

justice,"  he  has  strayed  again  and  again  past  our  pickets. 
And  the  thoughtful  Catholic  women  of  our  country  will, 
therefore,  see  the  need  of  sentry  duty  here. 

Our  Socialist  intellectuals "  disclaim  any  responsi- 
bility for  religious  defections  among  the  working  classes. 
The  Socialists  are  not  opposed  to  Christianity,  according 
to  Mr.  Spargo,  but  are  only  against  the  Church  as  a 
political  organization.  In  his  Applied  Socialism,  this 
popular  American  Socialist  says,  There  is  no  apparent 
reason  why  the  belief  in  the  collective  ownership  of  the 
principle  means  of  production  should  be  incompatible  with 
an  equally  strong  belief  in  Christianity,  or  for  that  matter 
Buddhism  or  Confucianism."  But  this  statement  by  the 
very  breadth  of  its  inclusion,  rather  increases  than  di- 
minishes our  fears,  since  we  realize  that  the  justice  of 
Socialism  being  non-Christian,  the  promises  of  the  So- 


12  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 

cialist  State  would  not  protect  the  great  Christian  prin- 
ciple of  our  right  to  live,  because  it  rejects  our  right  to 
hold  private  property — in  other  words  the  right  of  each 
one  of  us  to  do  what  we  will  with  what  we  earn  and 
own. 

Now  we  have  another  inherent  right — the  right  to  marry 
— a  right  which  strengthens  our  right  to  hold  private  prop- 
erty, and  which  is  the  very  core  of  human  society.  For 
woman  may  or  may  not  be  politically  or  economically  in- 
dependent, but  always  she  is  race  bearer.  Her  function 
of  motherhood  sequesters  her  under  any  form  of  gov- 
ernment from  autocracy  to  democracy.  And  to  the  So- 
cialist State,  the  continuation  of  society  through  repro- 
duction would  be  of  equal  import.  But  it  would  be  of 
particular  moment  to  woman,  because  this  hitherto  inti- 
mate prerogative — whether  or  not  she  considers  it  sacred 
— must  also  be  made  to  conform  to  the  collective  will. 
It  is  impossible  for  us  to  approach  the  attitude  of  Social- 
ism toward  marriage  and  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  with- 
out seeing  to  what  an  impasse  all  women  would  be 
brought.  And  this  would  be  true  especially  of  the  Cath- 
olic woman,  because  logically  Christian  marriage  must 
disappear  in  the  Socialist  State. 

"  The  family  while  probably  monogamous  would  not  be 
compelled  to  assume  this  form  [Miss  Hughan^^  gleans 
from  La  Monte]  As  we  have  it  at  present,  accord- 
ing to  the  Socialists,  the  family  rests  upon  a  foundation 
of  property  rights,^^  veiled  under  some  of  the  outworn 
forms  of  the  patriarchate.  With  the  minimizing  of  in- 
herited estates,  and  the  economic  independence  of  women, 
with  full  civil  and  political  rights  accorded  to  the  latter, 
and  the  eventual  responsibility  of  society  for  the  main- 
tenance of  children,  both  the  theory  of  the  patriarchal 
and  the  actuality  of  the  property  family  would  disappear. 
Woman  would  be  compelled  neither  to  marry  for  a  home, 

American  Socialism  of  the  Present  Day. 
"The    right   to    marry    according   to    Catholic   doctrine  merely 
strengthens  property  rights. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  13 


nor  to  remain  in  subjection  to  distasteful  marriage;  and 
though  few  Americans  look  for  the  revolution  foretold  in 
BebeFs^^  Woman  Under  Socialism,  yet  a  decided  change 
in  the  position  of  the  sex  would  under  these  circumstances 
be  inevitable." 

Just  what  this  change  will  be,  Catholic  writers  have 
been  quick  to  see.  And  the  doctrine  of  free  love  has  been 
taught  ad  nauseam  by  Socialists  from  Bebel  to  Carpenter. 
Mr.  Carpenter  urges  as  his  dictum  that  only  after  trial 
marriage  can  the  proper  affinity  be  found.  Ellen  Key, 
with  her  keen  psychologic  insight,  has  taught  a  larger 
understanding  of  motherhood,  but  chiefly  that  motherhood 
interferes  with  woman's  career.  It  speaks  much  for  the 
advance  of  American  women  toward  a  materialistic  pa- 
ganism, that  all  these  books  are  on  the  shelves  of  our  free 
libraries  for  the  edification  of  American  youth  of  both 
sexes.  Yet  Socialists  to-day  are  denying  any  such  out- 
come from  the  application  of  their  principles.  Either 
they  are  unable  to  see  or  unwilling  to  admit  the  danger 
of  a  monster  commonwealth's  collective  will.  They  take 
it  for  granted  that  what  is  purely  economic  will  be  pure 
morality,  that  the  will  of  the  majority  is  always  economic 
or  always  right.  Many  Socialists  resent  the  charge  of 
free  love,  because  it  is  not  their  personal  point  of  view, 
and  on  the  ground,  also,  that  the  party  as  a  whole  has 
never  been  committed  to  free  love.  "There  is  no  Socialist 
theory  of  marriage,''  says  Mr.  Spargo,  in  his  latest  book, 
Socialism  and  Motherhood}^  "  But  inevitably,"  a  non- 
Catholic  writer  reminds  us,  the  family  would  be  crushed 
between  individual  selfishness  and  State  interference ;  the 
care  of  children  would  more  and  more  be  made  a  State 
aflfair,  -family  life  would  be  emptied  of  its  responsibilities 
as  well  as  its  privileges,  of  its  burdens  as  well  as  of  its 
joys,  and  marriage  with  this  source  of  permanence  re- 

Catholic  women  should  read  Bebel's  Lihcl  on  Women"  (Rev. 
W.  McMahon,  SJ.    London:    Catholic  Truth  Society). 
"O.  D.  Skelton,  Socialism,  a  Critical  Analysis. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


moved,  would  become  a  temporary  and  arbitrary  rela- 
tion/' 

In  Socialism  and  Motherhood  a  sentimental  appeal  is 
made  to  the  American  mother,  who,  from  such  false  ideas 
of  the  teaching  of  Socialism,  has  been  deterred  from  be- 
coming a  comrade/'  Mr.  Spargo  propounds  query  after 
query  intending  to  bring  the  attacks  of  opponents  to 
naught.  He  even  makes  a  few  careless  references  to 
angels  (!),  and  claims  Socialism  has  been  first  to  stand 
for  every  reform  concerning  the  child,  notably  the  milk 
question,  although  it  is  bacteriology,  not  Socialism,  which 
has  taught  us  all  to  safeguard  our  milk  supply — run  for 
profit."  Suppose,''  he  questions,  we  applied  the  prin- 
ciple of  collective  ownership  to  telephones  and  telegraphs, 
to  the  supply  of  electric  light  and  power,  to  the  express 
service,  to  the  water  supply  and  the  ice  supply,  is  there 
any  good  reason  for  believing  that  the  result  would  be 
free  love  and  the  destruction  of  private  family  life? 
Has  that  been  the  result  where  these  things  have  been 
tried?" 

In  these  disclaimers,  Mr.  Spargo's  arrow  shoots  outside 
the  mark.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  know  collective  owner- 
ship has  not  been  tried  out  on  a  large  scale  anywhere  in 
the  world.  It  is  municipal  or  government  ownership  to 
which  Mr.  Spargo  rather  disingenuously  refers,  so  he  will 
be  no  more  convincing  to  our  Catholic  women  than  when 
he  claims  Socialism  is  not  incompatible  "  with  Christi- 
anity. But  when  he  comes  to  the  actual  discussion  of 
Bebel's  prophecies  for  woman's  freedom  in  the  Socialist 
State,  Mr.  Spargo  says  it  is  impossible  to  read  his  work 
Woman  and  Socialism  without  reaching  the  conclusion 
that  the  ideal  it  preaches  is  free  love.  This  is  not  the 
same  as  sexual  promiscuity/'  Mr.  Spargo  further  re- 
assures timid  American  mothers,  ^'  nor  is  it  incompatible 
with  strict  monogamy.  What  is  meant  is  that  the  force 
of  love  alone  ought  to  bind  man  and  wife  together  without 
any  external  compulsion  either  of  government,  economic 
dependence,  or  social  customs;  that  every  marriage  which 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


IS 


depends  upon  any  or  all  of  these  external  compulsions 
which  love  alone  is  not  strong  enough  to  perpetuate,  ought 
to  be  dissolved  in  the  interests  of  morality  and  happiness." 
What  Mr.  Spargo  and  all  other  Socialists  forget  is  this: 
that  it  was  not "  the  external  compunction  of  government, 
or  economic  dependence,  or  social  customs,''  which  has 
forced  the  monogamic  marriage  as  we  know  it  to-day 
upon  our  civilization.  It  was  Catholicism.  By  applying 
the  principles  of  truth  taught  by  Jesus,  her  Divine 
Founder,  she  compelled  a  pagan  world  to  submit  to  its 
holy  yoke.  There  is  no  mention  of  marriage  in  the  early 
Fathers,  or  in  Papal  decrees,  which  does  not  clearly  tes- 
tify to  its  sacramental  character  as  does  the  Ne  Temere 
of  only  the  other  day. 

Now  there  is  no  logical  reason  why  the  Socialist,  or 
any  other  disbeliever  in  Christianity,  should  regard 
marriage  as  the  sacred  bond  to  which  Jesus  Christ  raised 
it.  But  why,  in  heaven's  name,  prate  of  morality?  We 
are  considering  a  doctrine  of  political  economy  which 
leaves  out  morals.  There  is  but  one  reason  why  the  So- 
cialist State  would  aspire  to  monogamy.  And  it  is  the 
same  which  forces  the  poorer  Turk  to  be  monogamic. 
Any  other  form  of  marriage  would  be  uneconomic! 

In  Socialism  and  the  Great  State,  G.  R.  Stirling-Taylor, 
in  discussing  the  question  of  payment  for  mothers,  con- 
tributes this :  It  is  not  good  that  an  intelligent  woman 
should  give  up  her  whole  time  to  the  care  of  a  single 
house,  or  of  two  or  three  children,  who  would  be  far 
better  in  the  more  varied  society  of  a  larger  group,  which 
could  be  more  economically  and  efficiently  tended  by  a 
professional  nurse  who  chose  ( !)  that  work  by  preference. 
All  these  developments  eventually  may  lead  to  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  family  as  a  social  unit.  There  will  prob- 
ably be  no  place  in  the  larger  thinking  Great  State  for 
the  narrow  autocracy  of  the  father,  controlling  the  in- 
dividual rights  of  either  the  mother  or  the  child.  Such 
a  unit  will  only  hamper  the  individual,  without  assisting 
in  the  wider  work  of  the  State." 


1 6  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 

Such  appeals  to  the  class  consciousness  "  of  wife  and 
mother  can  have  but  one  aim  and  end — not  alone  woman's 
economic  and  political  independence  of  which  women 
stand  in  need  as  well  as  men,  but  as  with  the  worker — dis- 
content and  revolt.  They  are  "  useful  in  propaganda." 
They  accustom  women  to  the  idea  that  Christian  marriage 
is  not  an  essential  to  the  well-being  of  society  and  State. 
And  our  all  too  ready  divorce  mills  in  this  country  have 
prepared  a  fertile  soil  for  their  growth. 

Still  another  method  is  in  belittling  the  ordinary  house- 
hold tasks  and,  primarily,  the  intelligence  of  the  mothers 
of  the  past. 

"  It  is  not,  I  think,  [says  Cicely  Hamilton,  in  another 
chapter  of  the  same  book]  generally  recognized  how 
largely — one  may  hope  entirely — the  undoubtedly  low 
level  of  intelligence  in  woman  as  compared  with  man,  is 
the  direct  result  and  product  of  dire  economic  necessity, 
the  need  for  bread  or  the  need  for  success  in  life.  It 
has  paid  woman  in  the  past — in  some  walks  of  life, 
notably  marriage,  it  still  pays  them — to  be  stupid;  intel- 
ligence in  woman  has  been  an  obstacle  to,  not  a  qualifi- 
cation for  motherhood.  The  consciousness  of  superiority 
is  a  pleasant  thing;  and  it  is  a  sober  fact  that  for  countless 
generations  the  human  male  has  taken  a  real  and  active 
pleasure  in  despising  the  mental  attainments  of  the  human 
female,  has  insisted  with  emphasis  that  the  wife  of  his 
bosom,  the  mother  of  his  children,  should  be  a  creature 
he  could  look  down  upon  as  well  as  love.  Standing  in  the 
position  of  capitalist — of  employer  in  a  compulsory  trade 
— the  average  husband  was  able  to  dictate  terms,  to  bar- 
gain for  and  obtain  in  his  helpmeet  the  low  level  of  in- 
tellectuality which  he  considered  necessary  to  his  comfort 
and  self-esteem,  with  the  bitter  result  for  the  human 
race  that  the  mothers  thereof  have  been,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, selected  for  their  lack  of  wisdom,  and  encouraged  to 
be  greater  fools  than  nature  intended  to  make  them." 

All  this  would  be  profitless  reprinting  were  it  not  for 
its  evident  appeal  to  the  unthinking  and  creedless  Ameri- 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


17 


can  woman,  in  particular,  the  woman  with  a  grievance — 
real  or  fancied.  Such  women  know  nothing  and  care  less 
for  the  deep  industrial  problems  for  which  sincere  men 
and  women  of  every  shade  of  opinion  are  to-day  seeking 
a  solution.^^  Our  Catholic  women  should  realize  also 
which  way  many  unmoored  Christians  are  heading. 
These  selections  are  of  our  own  time,  and  except  in  the 
manner  of  stating  it,''^^  quite  as  Bebelian  as  Bebel.  For 
the  ideal  which  Socialist  books  place  before  all  women  is 
that  of  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the  pagan  women 
of  the  Greek  States.  Yet  both  Athens  and  Sparta  were 
small  independent  States.  And  the  high  degree  of  their 
civilization  was  made  possible  by  a  very  large  class  of 
State  serfs,  an  item  of  some  economic  importance  singu- 
larly overlooked  by  the  majority  of  Socialist  writers.  In 
Athens  only  daughters  of  citizens  could  be  wives  and 
mothers  of  citizens.  But  these  women,  while  citizens, 
stayed  at  home.  They  took  no  part  in  the  conduct  of 
the  State.  It  paid the  women  of  the  hetcerce  to  be 
brilliant  and  beautiful,  just  as  it  pays  other  courtesans  to- 
day. It  paid  Aspasia.  It  paid  Phyrne.  But  to  their 
charm.s  alone  these  women  owed  their  political  influence. 
And  if  it  is  to  the  hetcerce  the  Socialists  wish  our  women 
to  aspire,  we  must  recollect  that  the  Athenians  never  per- 
mitted these  women,  who  were  mostly  foreign-born,  to 
have  political  rights. 

We  must  not  interpret  any  glimpses  of  harmonious 
Socialist  family  life  of  to-day  as  true  working  formulae 
for  harmonious  family  life  in  the  Socialist  State.  Since, 
according  to  Socialist  doctrine,  all  Christian  marriage  has 
an  economic  basis — a  foundation  of  property  rights ;  " 
since  in  the  Socialist  State  the  relation  of  the  sexes  would 

American  Catholic  women  should  read  Socialism;  Promise  or 
Menace f  by  Hillquit-Ryan. 
^  ^'^Mr.  Spargo,  in  the  Substance  of  Socialism,  thus  takes  excep- 
tion in  his  preface  to  a  criticism  of  a  writer  in  the  Boston  Tran- 
script :  "  I  desire  only  to  make  plain  the  fact  that  except  in  the 
manner  of  stating  it,  there  is  not  the  slightest  difference  between 
my  general  position  and  that  taken  by  Marx,  Engels.  Leibnecht. 
Kautsky,  and  others  whose  orthodoxy  is  unquestioned." 


1 8  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


rest  upon  another  economic  basis — the  fundamental  need 
for  sound  citizens — how  would  woman  acquire  sex  free- 
dom by  exchanging  one  economic  relation  where  she  is 
consulted,  for  another  where  she  would  not  be?  For 
even  woman's  place  in  the  councils  of  the  Socialist  State 
would  not  leave  her  the  unfettered  things  of  to-day's 
roseate  forecast.  Neither  her  political  nor  her  economic 
independence  would  safeguard  her  sexual  independence. 
The  Socialist  State  would  determine  the  position  of  its 
citizens  according  to  its  economic  needs.  Woman's  posi- 
tion would  be  decided  by  her  qualifications  for  mother- 
hood. Collective  economics  would  brook  no  revolt 
against  scientific  eugenic  selection.  Human  wastage  must 
disappear.  A  super  race  is  essential.  The  regulation  of 
the  birth-rate  would  be  as  stern  a  solicitude  as  a  sound 
physical  inheritance.  The  courtesan  would  not  disap- 
pear. If  it  is  to  pagan  Greece  we  must  go,  let  us  hark 
back  to  Plato's  Republic  and  the  State  control  of  mother- 
hood. It  is  from  what  we  know  of  past  history,  from 
what  we  know  of  human  nature,  that  we  can  draw  our 
deductions,  our  prophecies.  To  the  creedless  Tntellectual' 
to-day,  it  may  seem  a  simple  matter  to  cut  out  Catholi- 
cism, with  its  safeguards  for  woman,  the  home,  the  child, 
the  derelict,  the  sick  and  infirm  and  aged.  If  the  social 
sickness  of  our  time  is  caused,  as  Leo  XIII.  was  the  first 
to  point  out,  by  too  little  religion  in  our  political  economy, 
what  is  to  become  of  woman  in  a  society  where  there  is 
none? 

To  the  Catholic  woman,  it  is  obvious,  then,  that 
neither  the  justice  of  Socialism  nor  the  promises  of  the 
Socialist  State,  would  protect  woman's  inherent  right 
to  marry,  any  more  than  it  would  secure  her  right  to  live. 
Both  of  these  inherent  rights  are  sanctified  by  the  bless- 
ing of  the  Church,  because  we  are  created  for  a  definite 
purpose.  But  what  of  those  other  rights — the  right  to 
liberty  and  the  right  to  serve  God — which  of  their  very 
terms  bespeak  that  purpose  as  high  and  all  important? 
Rights  for  which  Catholics  have  surrendered  their  other 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


19 


inherent  rights — ^when  a  State  refused  protection.  Even 
if  we  consider  only  the  American  woman's  right  to 
Hberty  as  the  SociaHst  would — applicable  wholly  to  her 
material,  not  her  spiritual  needs — we  find  difficulty  to 
guarantee  our  liberty  under  Marxian  rule. 

Unquestionably,  the  power  of  choice  is  woman's  dear- 
est possession.  And  notwithstanding  certain  disabilities 
which  are  in  many  of  our  States,  where  not  amended,  in 
line  to  be  amended,  the  American  woman  is  probably 
more  advantageously  placed  to  exercise  her  power  of 
choice,  than  any  other  woman  in  the  world.  Hard  as  the 
economic  lot  of  the  American  woman  worker  often  is, 
she  is  not  prevented  by  any  State  law  from  exercising  it — 
from  choosing  her  work,  or  from  going  from  one  place 
to  another  where  State  laws  better  favor  her  particular 
case.  And  in  all  intellectual  work,  while  theoretically 
there  is  much  complaint  of  injustice  to  women,  yet  prac- 
tically to-day  American  women  occupy  a  respected  place 
in  the  professions,  arts,  and  sciences,  and  are  gradually 
coming  into  political  preferment. 

The  question  of  choice  of  vocation  for  women  has  be- 
come a  thrifty  commonplace  amongst  us.  We  know 
there  is  not  sufficient  work  in  the  home  for  all  the  women 
of  the  household  who  want  or  who  need  to  work.  And 
we  know  all  women  do  not  want  to  marry  even  if  there 
were  a  sufficient  number  of  men.  Under  our  laws,  then, 
the  American  woman  chooses  her  vocation,  often  appar- 
ently without  due  thought  to  her  limitations,  and  if  her 
career  is  not  interrupted  by  marriage  and  family  cares, 
the  surprise  she  has  given  our  times  is  her  large  degree 
of  economic  success. 

Just  how  far  the  Socialist  State  would  permit  woman 
to  exercise  her  choice  of  vocation  is  extremely  proble- 
matic. Surprises  in  success  would  not  be  economic. 
And  while  vocational  training  and  the  parcelling  out  of 
work  according  to  the  State's  need  for  such  work  would 
unquestionably  help  out  those  ever-present  problems  of 
to-day — the  overcrowding  of  our  cities,  and  the  over- 


20 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


crowding  of  professions  in  those  cities — yet  there  is  no  ap- 
parent reason  for  the  assumption  that  woman  would  se- 
cure the  work  she  would  like,  nor  the  place  in  which  she 
would  like  to  live.  Those  problems  of  incentive,  assign- 
ment, and  remuneration  which  perplex  Socialist  writers 
to-day  are  perhaps  less  satisfactorily  solved  for  woman 
than  for  man. 

Bebel  held  out  a  fatuous  programme  in  Die  Frau, 
which  has  since  been  faithfully  absorbed  and  exuded  by 
the  unthinking  as  true.  Socialism,''  he  declared,  is 
science  applied  with  full  consciousness  and  clear  knowl- 
edge to  every  function  of  human  activity,''  and  proceeded 
to  offer  unscientific  and  uneconomic  prospects  to  allure 
talented  women. An  age  of  arts  and  sciences  such  as 
the  world  has  never  seen  before;  and  the  artistic  and 
scientific  productions  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  general 
progress.  There  will  be  "  scholars  and  artists  without 
numbers."  Yet  the  practical  mind  fails  to  see  how 
scholars  and  artists  would  have  time  to  pursue  their 
several  arts — time  to  acquire  the  technique  which  must 
underlie  their  expression,  in  a  state  of  society  where  it  was 
the  collective  will  that  all  take  part  in  the  social  produc- 
tion. 

The  later  Socialist  writers  recognize  the  folly  of  such 
unbridled  appeals.  They  attract  only  the  gullible,  and 
provoke  the  derision  of  the  thoughtful  instead  of  winning 
their  allegiance.  And  while  that  equal  opportunity  for 
every  child  which  Mr.  Spargo  stresses,  might  find  an 
occasional  overlooked  genius,  that  versatile  talent  which 
to  a  remarkable  degree  our  women  possess,  because  it  has 
been  wrung  from  their  own  initiative  to  grasp  oppor- 
tunities, would  be  necessarily  levelled  by  Socialist  edu- 
cational processes. 

On  what  premise  the  Socialist  builds  that  oft-asserted 
fact  that  the  Socialist  State  would  be  a  patron  of  arl 
or  letters,  has  never  been  made  quite  clear.  The  logical 
development  of  art  in  an  economic  state  would  be  rather 

"Cathrein,  Socialism. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  2i 


on  the  line  of  the  ultilitariarl.  Mere  beauty  being  neither 
economic  nor  utilitarian  would  be  last  fostered.  Art,  as 
we  conceive  it,  would  be  no  more  necessary  than  religion. 
For  every  people  which  has  had  a  highly  developed  art, 
has  had  a  highly  developed  religion,  and  an  idealism 
wholly  wanting  in  a  state  of  pure  economics.  Yet  we 
must  not  think  of  the  Socialist  State  as  ideal  in  our 
sense  of  the  word.  Miss  Hughan  reminds  us,  but  as  an 
evolutionary  product  of  economic  forces  which  the  capi- 
talist state  is  even  now  making.  It  would  appear,  then, 
from  any  deduction  we  can  make  from  Socialist  doctrine 
past  or  present,  that  the  Socialist  State  would  cut  out 
woman's  work  for  her,  as  much  as  is  any  piece  work  in  a 
capitalist  factory  to-day. 

But  State  control  by  collective  will  assumes  far  sterner 
proportions  for  the  Catholic  woman  than  for  any  other 
American  woman.  Not  alone  in  the  severing  of  the 
marriage  tie  would  an  anti-religious  collective  will  work 
havoc  for  us,  but  in  the  choice  of  religious  vocation  which 
calls  so  many  Catholic  girls  to  consecrate  their  talents 
and  their  natural  rights  to  the  service  of  God.  And  this 
would  be  particularly  true  of  our  contemplative  orders. 

It  is  not  easy  to  forecast  any  outlook  for  the  nun  in 
the  Socialist  State.  Since  all  private  property  is  to  be 
done  away,  and  all  children  are  to  be  State  wards,  "  play- 
fully introduced  " — as  Bebel  has  it — to  a  compulsory 
economic  education,  there  would  be  an  immediate  an- 
nulment of  the  nun's  prominent  work — religious  educa- 
tion. Such  institutions  as  were  necessary  would  also  be 
owned  and  operated  by  the  Socialist  State,  although  State 
assignment  might  give  to  her  all  those  unlovely  tasks 
which  so  complicate  the  perfect  building  of  the  new  social 
structure.  But  the  lesson  of  liberty  in  France  is  too 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  our  American  Catholic  women  for 
us  to  fancy  any  possibility  in  an  economic  common- 
wealth, which  would  not  mean  an  immediate  dispersal  of 
all  religious  communities.  So  the  liberty  of  the  Cath- 
olic woman — her  power  of  choice — whether  it  be  for  her 


22  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


material  necessities,  her  right  to  marry,  or  her  spiritual 
needs  or  vocation,  would  neither  be  guaranteed  nor  se- 
cured by  the  Socialist  State. 

We  have  but  to  dip  a  little  further  into  Marx's  theory 
of  the  materialistic  conception  of  history,  to  understand 
why  it  interferes  with  our  power  of  choice,  which,  after  all, 
is  but  a  part  of  God's  greatest  yet  most  perilous  gift  to  us — 
free  will.^^  Catholic  women  will  be  quick  to  appreciate 
that  the  great  Socialist  dogma  ignores  free  will;  ignores 
the  gfeat  heroes  or  heroines  of  history  or  religion;  neg- 
lects every  spiritual  force ;  and  suppresses  any  fact  which 
goes  to  prove  that  each  of  us  has  an  integral  value  in- 
dependent of  our  collective  value.  To  the  Catholic  this 
is  complete  annihilation  of  Christian  faith  and  teaching. 
That  great  Eternal  Truth  that  God  speaks  to  each  human 
soul,  according  to  the  needs  of  that  soul,  and  often 
through  it  to  the  needs  of  the  hour,  has  never  been  more 
inspiring  than  when  woman  has  been  selected  for  some 
great  economic  or  political  crisis.  Does  the  economic  in- 
terpretation of  history  wholly  explain  for  us  that  coming 
of  a  Domremy  peasant  girl  to  crown  a  king  at  Rheims, 
or  a  Sienese  wool-dyer's  daughter  to  reinstate  the  Popes 
in  Rome? 

Religion  is  a  private  matter,"  was  once  an  authori- 
tative pronouncement  of  Karl  Marx  when  pressed  for  an 
answer.  And  to  this  modern  Socialism  refers  all  in- 
quirers. The  more  intellectual  studies  of  modern 
economic  problems,  while  frankly  anticipating  many 
changes,  pass  by,  with  a  few  encouraging  platitudes,  the 
vital  questions  of  religion  and  family  life,  presumably  as 
not  in  line  with  the  discussion.  But  Marx's  words, 
savoring  similarly  of  Bebel's  on  the  sex  relation,  cannot 
be  satisfying  to  Catholicism.  For  us,  religion  can  never 
be  wholly  a  private  matter.  It  has  its  interior  demands, 
but  it  has,  also,  its  exterior  ones.  It  requires  the  priest, 
;the  altar  stone,  the  sacrifice.  The  Catholic  dififers  in  this 
respect  from  other  Christians  who  still  acknowledge  our 

"Cathrein,  Socialism. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  23 


Lord's  Divinity.  A  belief  like  the  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  which  requires  an  interior  conformity,  does 
not  of  necessity  require  an  external  expression.  A 
staunch  Presbyterian  need  not  enter  his  church  for 
months  if  the  sermons  be  not  to  his  liking,  and  yet  there 
would  no  suspicion  attach  itself  to  his  loyalty  to  this 
doctrine. 

But  believe,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,"  was  not  our 
Lord's  sole  command.  He  was  quite  as  explicit  when  He 
said  He  would  found  a  Church  which  is  to  last  to  the 
world's  end.  He  made  it  no  less  certain  that  He  was 
giving  supernatural  powers  to  a  particular  set  of  men  who 
could  transmit  these  powers.  He  even  showed  these  men 
what  they  were  to  do:  ''This  is  My  Body,"  ''This  is 
My  Blood,"  "  Do  this  in  commemoration  of  Me."  Our 
exterior  worship,  then,  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever, 
centres  about  the  Mass,  whether  it  be  performed  in  the 
small  upper  room,  in  the  catacombs,  in  the  jails  of  Eliza- 
beth's England,  in  the  caves  of  priest-hunting  Ireland, 
in  a  chapel  car  out  west,  or  at  the  High  Altar  of  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome.  Nor  must  we  fancy  that  Socialism 
minimizes  the  strength  of  our  organization,  and  the  great 
fact,  which  attracts  all  other  disbelievers — that  the  Catholic 
Church  is  on  the  side  of  law  and  order  in  whatever 
government  she  is  found.  Her  solidarity  in  this  regard 
is  the  despair  of  the  revolutionary  element  in  the  So- 
cialist ranks. 

"  The  Church  is  one  of  the  pillars  of  Capitalism,"  com- 
plained an  editor  of  London  Justice,  Harry  Quelch,  "  and 
the  true  function  of  the  clergy  is  to  chloroform  the  work- 
ers, to  make  docile  wage  slaves  of  them,  patient  and  con- 
tented with  their  lot  in  this  world,  while  expecting  glorious 
reward  in  the  next."  As  long  as  the  Church  holds  the 
minds  of  workers  in  its  grip,  there  will  be  little  hope  of 
freeing  their  bodies  from  capital  supremacy." 

In  this  country,  Victor  Berger,  former  U.  S.  Con- 
gressman from  Wisconsin,  echoes  this :  "  Now  the 
church  is  with  the  capitalist  class  without  doubt,  es- 


24  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


pecially  the  Church  per  se,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
That  Church  has  always  sided  with  the  class  in  power 

 The  Church  was  on  the  side  of  feudalism  while 

feudalism  was  on  top,  and  the  Church  now  sides  with 
capitalism  while  capitalism  is  on  top/' 

Miss  Hughan  is  moderate  always,  but  leaves  us  in  no 
doubt  that  in  its  external  form  "  religion  is  allowed  no 
exemption  from  criticism.  The  State  Churches  of 
Europe,  in  fact,  being  openly  allied  with  the  bourgeois 
governments,  are  to  be  counted  among  the  enemies  of 
the  proletariat." 

Over  against  these  citations  we  must  place  one  from  a 
Catholic  author.  A  society  in  which  the  Church  shall 
conquer,"  says  Mr.  Belloc,  will  be  a  society  in  which  a 
proletariat  shall  be  as  unthinkable  as  it  was  in  the  Middle 
Ages." 

Past  history  supports  this  apparently  large  claim. 
The  one  society  in  our  civilization  in  which  the  working 
class  and  the  master  class  have  lived  in  entire  harmony — 
and  in  which  they  formed  associations  for  their  common 
benefit — was  at  a  time  when  Catholicism  had  won  prac- 
tically the  whole  of  Europe  to  the  everyday  use  of  those 
principles  of  Eternal  Truth  which  Jesus  Christ  left  in  her 
keeping :  You  may  be  great,  but  you  must  be  humble. 
You  may  be  rich,  but  you  must  prefer  poverty.  You 
may  love  those  who  love  you,  but  you  must  love  those 
who  hate  you.  You  may  forgive  those  who  forgive  you, 
but  you  must  forgive  those  who  injure  you." 

Divinity  alone  could  have  inspired  such  a  code.  Divinity 
alone  has  inspired  men  and  women — is  inspiring  them  to- 
day— to  the  practice  of  that  code.  Even  Socialism  realizes 
that  the  only  men  and  women  of  the  capitalist  class  who 
surrender  their  all  for  God  and  their  neighbor,  are  our 
Catholic  Religious.  But  what  outlook  is  there  for  the  infu- 
sion of  such  principles  into  Socialism  or  the  promises  of 
the  Socialist  State?  Where  Catholicism  directs  atten* 
tion  to  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  prove  the 
efficacy  of  injecting  religious  principles  into  economics, 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State  25 


Socialism,  by  ignoring  all  such  influences,  interprets  the 
more  harmonious  relationship  between  widely  different 
classes  as  due  to  better  economic  conditions ! 

Nor  is  the  vague  hope  that  the  Christian  Socialists  of 
our  country — by  their  auspicious  alliance  of  nomenclature 
— are  to  bring  the  Divine  teachings  of  Christ  into  So- 
cialism, destined  to  fruition.  Logically,  our  Christian 
Socialists  can  communicate  with  either  Catholic  or  So- 
cialist only  in  the  sign  language  of  tolerance.  For  they 
deny  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  which  is  anti-Christian,  yet 
cling  to  Him  as  a  great  Man,  which  is  anti-Socialist. 

Obviously,  the  responsibility  is  wholly  ours.  In  other 
words,  we  believe  too  much.  We  assert  too  much.  And 
it  is  to  this  call  the  great  Encyclicals  of  the  last  two  Pon- 
tiffs are  directed.  Deep  studies  of  economic  problems  as 
they  are,  the  primary  force  of  their  message  has  been 
to  bring  clearly  before  an  increasingly  materialistic  so- 
ciety— Catholic  and  non-Catholic — the  perennial  efficacy 
of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  show  all  of  us 
how  far  we  have  drifted  from  them.  For  the  Church  is 
chiefly  interested  not  in  the  capitalist  class,  not  in 
the  middle  class,  not  in  the  working  class,  but  in  each 
one  of  us  who  turns  to  her  for  spiritual  guidance  and 
nourishment.  Each  safeguard  she  sets  about  her  little 
ones,  each  great  soul  tried  and  tempted  in  a  difficult  age  to 
whom  she  points  for  our  edification,  is  to  show  us  of  to- 
day that  His  teaching  is  neither  impossible  nor  impractical. 
As  the  Guardian  of  Eternal  Truth,  her  interest  in  the 
economic  theories  of  Socialism  is  in  the  immorality  of  its 
inherent  principles,  and  their  bearing  upon  the  individual 
souls  of  her  children. 

Simply  put,  we  have  seen  that  a  collective  economic 
will  cannot  protect  our  moral  rights,  since  it  is  anti-Chris- 
tian. Yet  we  must  not  fancy  we  have  grasped  the  entire 
economic  argument  of  Socialism.  It  is  a  socialistic  age, 
and  for  the  majority  of  our  Catholic  women  life  is  a  busy 
thing.  Unquestionably  a  large  number  of  us  are  de- 
terred from  any  study  of  Socialism  because  the  whole 


26 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


emphasis  of  the  argument  is  on  its  economic  side — a  side 
to  which  many  women  are  wholly  indifferent.  But  so 
long  as  the  brilliant  leaders  of  the  Socialist  party  in  this 
country  can  polish  each  facet  of  our  economic  problems, 
so  long  as  the  revolutionary  element  can  keep  our  glar- 
ing social  inequalities  before  the  eyes  of  the  workers,  just 
so  long  will  Socialism  appeal  to  the  discontent  of  a  large 
class  whose  dry  spiritual  life  is  antagonistic  to  faith,  or 
whose  miserable  lot  is  primarily  responsible  for  their 
loss  of  it. 

Miss  Hughan  thinks  that  a  certain  measure  of  respon- 
sibility as  to  the  future  of  Socialism  rests  with  the  cul- 
tural institutions  of  Church,  press,  and  university. Hos- 
tility on  the  part  of  these  forces  tends  in  general  to  weaken 
the  influence  of  the  'Intellectuals'  and  the  Christian  So- 
cialists, to  harden  the  party  organization  on  the  lines  of 
the  class  struggle,  and  to  render  the  revolutionist  the 
dominant  Socialist  type.  If  the  movement  is  ignored  by 
the  higher  intellectual  forces,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
danger  that  Socialism,  encountering  in  controversy  only 
the  ignorant  and  unscientific,  may  rest  satisfied  with  the 
unrevised  economics  of  the  last  century,  and  win  the  sup- 
port of  the  people  by  superficial  propaganda  and  specious 
promises  of  a  millennium." 

The  importance,  then,  of  a  clear  estimate  of  the  moral 
issue  involved  in  Socialism  cannot  be  gainsaid.  It  is  the 
farsight  lens  through  which  our  Catholic  women  will 
come  to  see  the  economic  argument  in  its  true  perspective. 
For  while  accentuating  the  paramount  importance  of 
guarding  the  individual's  moral  rights — which  Socialism 
utterly  ignores — we  must  not  obscure  the  importance  of 
that  individual's  environment.  It  is  almost  an  axiom 
among  Catholic  sociologists  that  preventable  human 
misery  means  the  loss  of  a  soul.    With  the  highest  in- 

""The  Intercollegiate  Socialist  Society  is  a  society  for  the  pro- 
motion of  an  intelligent  study  of  Socialism  At  the  end  of 

191 1  the  Society  had  study  chapters  in  thirty-eight  American  Col- 
leges "   (Elements  of  Socialism,  by  Sparge  and  Arner). 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


27 


tention,  neither  the  individual  nor  religion  can  accom- 
plish every  necessary  reform  in  our  country,  because  to- 
day legislation  must  do  so  much.^* 

We  must  be  able  to  distinguish,  however,  between  a 
government  like  ours  in  which  the  individual's  inherent 
rights  or  efforts  toward  reforms — so  long  as  he  is  law- 
abiding — are  protected  and  unhampered,  and  would  be 
even  if  government  ownership  prevailed,  and  a  collective 
government  like  that  promised  in  the  Socialist  State, 
where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  individual's  rights  or  his  ac- 
tions would  of  necessity  be  hampered  and  made  sub- 
servient. 

In  each  of  our  States,  also,  we  have  the  machinery  for 
righting  local  abuses,  if  it  be  set  in  motion  by  our 
awakened  consciences.  There  are,  for  example,  no  laws 
prohibiting  associations  of  workers  and  employers  for 
the  common  good  of  both.  Such  reforms  await  the 
individual  action  of  employers  and  workers;  while  in 
a  number  of  our  States,  each  Catholic  woman  being 
politically  independent,  can  voice  her  sentiments  toward 
all  reform  measures  for  the  benefit  of  the  woman  worker. 
Our  Catholic  women  need  to  watch  our  current  events. 
For  dangers — no  longer  shadowy — lurk  behind  many  of 
our  political,  social,  and  economic  questions.  No  mere 
pietistic  complacence  will  serve  us  to-day,  if  we  aspire 
to  the  practical  defence  of  Eternal  Truth. 

But  if  our  Catholic  women  would  strike  sparks  from 
the  blades  of  their  Socialist  friends  or  coworkers,  they 
must  go  to  school  again  to  their  Faith.  No  Catholic  pen 
has  been  too  learned  to  adapt  the  general  laws  laid  down 
in  the  Encyclicals  to  the  particulars  of  locality.  Our 
doctrinal  and  economic  pamphlets,  logically  and  clearly 
stated  in  simple  language  and  built  upon  the  writings  of 
the  Fathers,  refute  the  misleading  attacks  of  our  op- 
ponents who  are  unused,  as  are  our  Catholic  scholars,  to 
culling  information  at  first  hand.    Our  Catholic  Truth 

"Dr.  Ryan  makes  this  very  clear  in  his  Social  Reform  on 
Catholic  Lines.    New  York  :  The  Paulist  Press. 


28  Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


Societies  are,  in  this  way,  both  meeting  the  effective  So- 
ciahst  propaganda,^^  and  are  following  Catholic  Social 
Action  in  other  lands. 

American  Catholics  are  wont  to  complain  that  the  size 
of  our  country  and  our  diffusion  throughout  the  body 
politic,  is  inimical  to  the  growth  of  combined  Catholic 
Social  Action. 2^  But  our  very  diffusion  should  rather 
bring  home  to  each  one  of  us  our  personal  responsibility 
toward  our  riches.  Possession  means  peace;  defence, 
safety.  But  there  is  something  higher  than  the  ability 
to  select  our  weapons  for  conflict.  It  is  to  apply  the 
principles  of  Eternal  Truth  to  our  everyday  lives. 
Through  us  its  light  must  disperse  the  miasma  of  ma- 
terialism, which  threatens  so  much  that  is  finest  in  us  as 
a  nation.  And  the  ultimate  spiritual  disarmament  of 
friends  or  foes  will  come  only  through  this  supreme 
power. 

How  else  do  our  valiant  women  of  the  Middle  Ages 
speak  to  us  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  great  Encyclicals  sound 
to  us  so  strangely  familiar,  loving,  admonishing  and  firm, 
as  we  read  or  study  them  to-day?  Echoes  they  are,  en- 
larged to  our  larger  necessities,  of  that  long  ago  letter 
of  Peter's  beseeching  his  "  dearly  beloved to  submit 
the  force  of  Christlike  example  to  the  Gentiles,  "  that 
by  doing  well  you  may  put  to  silence  the  ignorance  of 
foolish  men." 

Unconscious  allies  we  have  outside  the  fold,  question- 
ing, watching,  waiting.  It  is  a  happy  augury  of  our 
time  that  many  of  them  are  returning  to  learn  their  al- 

^^"The  party  (Socialist)  carries  on  an  almost  incredible  amount 
of  educational  work  by  means  of  traveling  lectures,  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  millions  of  pamphlets  and  books  each  year.  Study 
courses  are  furnished  to  the  local  organizations,  and  in  this  way 
thousands  of  members  are  induced  to  make  a  systematic  study  of 
Socialistic  theory"  (Elements  of  Socialism,  by  Spargo  and  Arner). 

^"American  Catholic  women  would  find  inspiration  in  the  Social 
Study  Courses  arranged  for  this  country  and  England,  in  the 
Catholic  Social  Year  Book,  published  for  the  Catholic  Social  Guild 
of  England,  and  in  the  publications  of  the  Catholic  Truth  Society 
on  Catholic  Social  Action  in  France,  in  Germany,  etc. 


Woman  and  the  Socialistic  State 


29 


pliabet  at  the  Mother's  knee.  They  come  largely  through 
the  power  of  Catholic  example.  But  they  do  not  come 
collectively.  They  come  one  by  one.  Is  it  not  well  for 
each  Catholic  woman  to  ask  herself  why  out  of  millions 
of  her  countrywomen  her  possession  of  Eternal  Truth 
should  give  her  this  opportunity?  Our  country  sets  no 
limit  upon  what  we  may  do  for  our  neighbor.  Our 
faith  enjoins  it.  And  we  are  not  to  be  judged  collec- 
tively, but  one  by  one. 


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